“You stay, protect Sally girl.” Wise Sister jerked a thumb at the wall of trees. She returned to her horse, caught its reins, and walked past both of them so swiftly Logan didn’t get a chance to protest again.
Sally headed straight for that wall. Logan opened his mouth to ask how in the world they’d pass through that, when Sally turned her horse to the left and vanished.
Logan quickly nudged his horse forward, hoping the animal could do the same magic trick the other horse did. He glanced back at Wise Sister. She’d vanished, too. For a few seconds, Logan had a wild wash of fear to be so completely alone in these woods and mountains. He’d haunted them for three years now, craved being alone in them. But he’d never faced danger.
He felt such contempt for himself at that moment it nearly choked him, to be protected by two women this way. Then his buckskin, far wiser then he on the trail—and why should his horse be different than everyone else?—turned onto an invisible trail between the rock and the closest tree. Because the tree was a bit closer to Logan than the massive stone, it looked like they butted up against each other, but there were in fact several feet between them and a faint trail that his horse moved along easily.
Logan heard Sally’s horse snort ahead, but he couldn’t see her in the dense undergrowth. To find Sally, he asked, “How did she find this?”
Sally’s voice came from only feet away. “Scouting around you find these things.”
Logan’s horse turned at a corner that twisted the trail back on itself so sharply he realized he’d been side by side with Sally even though he couldn’t see a sign of her.
“She was probably tracking a deer and saw it go down this way.”
They were soon on the other side of that massive stone and once again moving along on a solid rock ledge.
“How far do we go?” Logan asked. He had a feeling he should know.
“Until we find a likely place.”
“A likely place for what?”
“To hole up.” Sally looked over her shoulder for too long.
Logan wanted to paint her smiling, daydreaming, working. He’d wanted to capture every one of the open expressions that passed so freely across her face. He’d actually felt hungry to explore every aspect of her beautiful face. But this expression …
“We need a good field of fire.”
… made his stomach hurt.
“I’ll hunt for shelter and—more important—cover.”
It made him sick to think of putting this on canvas. He never wanted to see it again. “Cover from those men shooting at us?” He forced himself to say it aloud.
“That’s right, Logan.” She turned away from him. “We’re looking for a likely place to kill.” Nudging her horse forward, she added, “Or die.”
Luther felt the flames cutting at him, his skin seared as he passed through the licking, consuming blaze. Once in, nearly blinded by the smoke, he took a desperate look around, rushing farther in to make sure no one lay unconscious in the corner, bleeding from bullet wounds.
No one. He headed out and saw a picture of Sally, drawn in pencil, lying on the floor near his feet. He grabbed at the drawings and felt a stack of things under it. He took them all as he staggered out of the choking blaze to drag fresh air into his lungs.
He looked around as he struggled to breathe and saw Buff abandoning the other cabin with something good-sized in his hand.
“No one in there.” Buff had a picture, too. This one not a sketch but a painting.
“She was here.” Luther lifted his picture as he and Buff moved away from the smothering fire. They saw the corral with two horses fidgeting and snorting because of the commotion.
“They either took her or she ran.” Buff began studying the ground. It was the work of minutes to pick up the trail, grab their horses, and set off for the far side of this small flatland.
As they rode, Luther looked down at the picture of his Sally in his hand. She looked so much like Mandy, but she was completely herself. The toughest little wrangler in Texas, to Luther’s way of thinking.
Buff held up what he’d brought.
Luther expected to see another picture of Sally. Instead he saw an old woman, dressed in a Shoshone doeskin dress, standing beside— “That’s Pierre Babineau.” Luther remembered the tough old codger well. He’d been haunting these mountains for years.
“And Wise Sister.” Buff lifted the picture for just a second and looked at it. “She’s gotten old. Reckon I have, too.” He went back to his tracking.
“Never knew her.” Luther saw where the trail dipped into the woods. Savvy spot to pick, with a dry spring eating a pathway, rough but passable, into that tangled forest.
“Babineau was a wandering man.” Buff looked again at the picture. “Wise Sister stayed to home. I was in these parts before. Years ago. Did some trapping and mining on the Yellowstone River. I knew Wise Sister well, even before she married Babineau. If Babineau and Wise Sister have our Sally, then our girl’s in good hands.”
Luther’s chest expanded with the most hope he’d felt since they’d found that first sign and knew Sally was alive. “Is she the one who drew these pictures?”
Buff shrugged. “Never heard of her doin’ no drawing. S’pose it’s possible. Shore cain’t be Babineau. That man made a mark instead of signing his name. He drew me a map once to where he’d found good trapping, and I could barely make hide nor hair of it. He had no interest in anything that had him sitting around.”
“Look at this trail. Three rode away first, then two came after. The ones we’ve been trailing. Three. She’s with Babineau and Wise Sister.”
“Babineau was almighty savvy in the woods. But it was Wise Sister leaving markers for us. That don’t make sense. Pierre wasn’t a man to stay to home while his woman did the tracking.”
“Maybe he’s stoved up these days.” Luther smoothed his heavy beard and thought about the harsh winters he’d lived through since following after Mandy. It suited him, these mountains did. He felt like he’d come home. But it was a rugged life, took its toll. “Hard, cold mountains might have gotten to his joints by now.”
“Whatever’s going on with Sally, those outlaws are dogging hard on her heels.” Buff exchanged a grim look with Luther.
“We’re close. We’re almost there.” Luther went down the trail as quickly as he dared, only to glance back and see Buff was off his horse. Luther pulled up. “What are you doing?”
Buff tucked the picture carefully into his saddle bag. It stuck out some, but he managed to fit it in. “I can’t toss this away. If this is Wise Sister’s, she can come fetch later.”
Luther arched a brow as Buff took a long, close look at that painting. There was something in Buff’s expression that Luther had never seen before. With a shrug, he said, “Stick these under that tree.”
Buff saw them and mounted up. They moved on down the trail, mindful of those men who had gone this way only moments ago. Men who had killed before.
That oughta be a lot more interesting to Buff than a painting of an old friend.
Nineteen
Sally pulled her horse to a stop so hard the animal fought the bit and reared. It backed away from the ledge while Sally’s heart threatened to pound out of her chest. Her horse stumbled into the one behind it.
Then Logan was beside her. Not because he’d ridden up, but because she’d backed into him. Her horse had stumbled into Logan’s then kept backing thanks to her iron-hard grip on the reins.
The trail wasn’t wide enough for both of them. The mountain rose up steep on her right and rubbed hard against the cast on her leg. Then on the left the whole world slid away into a steep woodland. But somehow she managed to squeeze in beside Logan without shoving him off the trail on the downhill side.
Logan grabbed her horse’s bridle as it came even with his hand. He stopped her or she might have backed all the way to Texas. “What is it?”
She realized what she was doing and eased up on her poor horse. Though her grip on
the reins lessened, fear didn’t lessen its grip on her. Her vision blurred and all she could see were trees rushing toward her as she fell and fell and fell. “We need to go back.” She tore a hand from the reins to point back the way they’d come. “We must have … have … m–missed—”
“You said it was this way. You said Wise Sister gave you clear directions.” Logan was watching her so intently she could hang on to that look, and some of the panic left her.
Then she looked at the trail ahead and saw rushing trees as she fell, then jerked her head around to look at Logan again. “We—we can’t—the trail isn’t—” Sally couldn’t finish a sentence.
That searching look in Logan’s eyes shifted from her to the trail. The awful trail Wise Sister intended them to take to reach safety. Logan tugged on the reins and pulled them free of her hand, as if he was afraid she’d turn and run if he let go of her horse. He began riding forward, leading her black mustang as if he meant to go straight over that cliff.
“No!” Sally’s shout was more like a scream. Humiliating. Girly. Pa would be so ashamed. He might quit loving her. No man would love her if she acted like a weakling.
Logan stopped and twisted in his saddle. “I’m not going down the trail. I just want to see it.”
But did he mean it? Or was he lying to make her face this stupid fear? She’d scrambled all over the steep, broken land back in Texas. There were no mountains like these, but it was plenty steep and plenty rugged. She’d never been afraid of a tough trail or a steep descent until—
“Is this because of the fall you took?” Logan turned his horse on the tight mountain path and rode up to her so he was only inches away.
Swallowing, nearly unable to force the words past her throat, she said, “I—I don’t know. Maybe. I didn’t know. I’ve never—I—I’m just being—a girl. I’m sorry.” Sally tried to force her shoulders to square, but it was as if a thousand-pound weight of fear held them slumped. She swallowed again. “I—I can do it.” She looked from the ledge to Logan and back to the ledge.
“Sally.” His voice was hard. Commanding. Not at all the easygoing tone he usually took. She had so neatly concluded he was a weak, no-account kind of man. He didn’t even mind a female crying. What kind of a man put up with that? But this wasn’t the voice of a weak man.
“I’m not weak.” Tearing her gaze from that drop, she faced him and knew she was lying.
“Of course you’re not. You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever known.” Logan held on tight to her reins, belying his words.
“I can handle it.” She could not go over that ledge. A scream built in her chest and began forcing its way out of her throat. Tears burned her eyes and twisted her stomach with the sickening admission of being a weakling, a female.
As if he knew she was on the ragged edge of control, Logan reached out and plucked her off her horse. He was so strong he lifted even the heavy cast so it easily cleared the saddle. He wasn’t weak. Not at all. Not like her. Not about this.
He slid himself back on his horse, behind the cantle, and set Sally sideways on the saddle, still warm from his occupying it. This close, with one arm around her back against her pretty doeskin dress, holding his reins and hers, she felt some of his strength seep into her.
Shameful to need strength from another. She needed her own. Her pa loved her best when she was tough and didn’t cry and did a man’s work.
The need to scream fought to get free. Compulsively, her eyes went back to that awful, treacherous trail. “On—on a good mountain-raised horse we–we’ll be fine.” Her throat went bone-dry.
He caught her chin and tugged her face around so their eyes met. “You went through something no human being should ever face, Sally. Falling like that, somehow surviving. You’re as strong and courageous as anyone I’ve ever known.”
Sally couldn’t pretend it was the truth. “I’m shaming myself. I’ve always pretended to be strong, but it was always a lie. I cry sometimes. When I’m alone. And I love pretty, girly things—ribbons and lace and curls. I’m a coward.” Panic had jarred loose her deepest secrets. Next she’d admit she got tired of riding the range and trying to outshoot the other cowpokes.
“No, you’re not.”
“I can do it.” She couldn’t imagine how. She’d faint or fall off her horse. She’d start screaming and crying and not be able to stop.
“We’ll go back. We don’t even know if those men found our trail. There’s a very good chance they didn’t. We’ll be careful, go the way Wise Sister did, go past my cabin and ride out that way.”
“Which might take us right into the teeth of those back-shooting coyotes. If they’d—if they’d face us, I could handle that.” Sally realized then her fear went deeper than falling. Deeper than admitting to tears and softness. It turned her pure yellow to think of killing a man. She remembered firing, firing, unloading her gun, reloading, spinning it to cock it as her mother had taught her, as she’d fought with the colonel on that terrible mountain trail. She’d done it without thinking, but now it came rushing back. Had she killed a man?
Dear God, please have mercy if I took a man’s life.
“Sally, it will be all right.” Logan’s eyes carried such strength, such calm. The calm helped. Not much, but some.
“What’s wrong with me?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“It’s normal, even reasonable to have a terrible experience leave behind fears, Sally.” Logan’s lips brushed hers and gave her something to think about besides sheer terror and wrenching guilt and her pa’s love. Her pa had never asked her to be a tomboy. In fact, he’d often tried to shield her from the hardest work, and he’d assured her that he loved her for herself. The things she did. The way she acted didn’t make a difference.
Beth had talked with her a few times, quiet talks, about their first pa and how much he’d wanted a son and how hard Sally had tried to be one for him. And how she’d kept that up when Ma had remarried. Beth had tried to encourage Sally to put on a dress and enjoy being a girl. But Sally hadn’t trusted Pa to love her unless she helped him and never complained and never cried.
And now here she was, shaming herself in front of Logan. But Logan had never feared her tears. And yes, Pa might actually fear them, but he’d never withheld his love for any reason.
“There’s nothing reasonable about what I’m feeling, Logan. Um, let’s—let’s get on with it.” Her heart pounded faster. The trees, the falling, her vision blurred and she was somewhere else. Falling. Fighting it, she whispered, “Put me back on my horse. Give me a minute to steady my nerves, and we’ll go.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Her voice barely worked.
“We can go back, Sally. There’s no shame in not facing that trail. It’s a bad one.”
“Let’s go. Help me back on the horse.” She glanced down at her heavy cast, wrapped in Wise Sister’s cleverly made moccasin.
Logan didn’t obey her one bit about returning her to her saddle. Instead he backed his horse around and faced forward. Still holding her solidly, he made short work of detaching one of her horse’s reins, tying it to the other to double its length, then lashed Sally’s rein to his saddle horn.
The reins were long enough to leave her horse a couple of paces behind his. She wasn’t sure what he intended by that. Did he intend to lead her down? That might be best. “Yes, put me down and I’ll—” They neared the point where the trail fell off the edge of the world. Her vision blurred and trees rushed toward her and slapped her and clawed at her as she fell and fell. She wrapped her arms around Logan and buried her face against his chest.
“I’ll just keep you right here, I think, pretty Sally.”
“No, no, I’ll be fine, I just need a little more time.” Her voice rose until it was a squeak. Her eyes clamped shut. She felt the horse under her moving, heard its hooves clomping with dull, slow thuds on the rocky trail.
The ground suddenly sloped and Sally’s eyes flew open. She l
ooked along Logan’s broad chest and past his left shoulder and saw … nothing. Air. The ground was gone for a hundred yards below. “Logan, no. I need time—”
“After I kissed you, you said you looked stupid in that picture. I thought you looked wonderful.”
“What?” Sally’s eyes were riveted on the vast expanse of nothingness as the horse picked its way down, sure-footed, slow and steady. Her heart hammered until she thought it would explode.
Logan caught her chin again, gently but unshakably. “What did you see in that painting that was stupid? I saw a woman who’d enjoyed a kiss. Who wanted another.”
“Logan! Pay attention to the trail.” Sally’s hands clutched the back of his shirt frantically. She was going to scream. She was going to fall. Fall and fall forever, never stop. Never—
He kissed her. Pulled away quickly. “There you go. That’s the kiss you wanted, right? That’s what was in your eyes after I kissed you.” Logan smiled at her.
“No.” The man wasn’t even watching the trail.
“Liar.”
That insult got her attention. Calling a person a liar in the West was shooting trouble. “I didn’t want another kiss.”
“You took the second one I gave you without complaining.”
“Watch the trail!” She felt her hands full of broadcloth on his back as if she could sink into him completely.
“A person has to trust his horse on a slope.”
“But you should be watching.”
“You want another kiss right now.” It wasn’t a question. He stated it as a fact.
And it wasn’t true. What she wanted right now was to go back up to the top of this trail where it was safe. “That’s the last thing on my mind, you big dumb—”
His hand slid from her chin and sank into her hair at the nape of her neck and he kissed her again. Deeply, gently. Sally thought of that picture he’d painted as she lost herself in the kiss. A woman whose mind had been emptied.
Sophie's Daughters Trilogy Page 50